By Ali Buzra
Part Twelve
LIFE UNDER PRESSURE AND SUFFERING
(Evaluations, Comments, Accounts)
Memorie.al / At the request and wish of the author, Ali Buzra, as his editor and first reader, I will briefly share what I experienced in this encounter with this book. This is his second work (following the book “Gizaveshi through the years”) and naturally continues his writing style. The sincerity and candidness of the narration, the simple and unembellished language, the precision of the episodes, and the absence of intentional post-processing fantasy have served the author well. He comes to the reader in his original form, inviting us to know human fates and unknown pains, whether encountered by chance or not, leaving us to reflect as a beginning of awareness toward a catharsis so necessary for the Albanian conscience.
Bedri Kaza
Continuing from the previous issue…
Family members of Azis Biçaku: Decades of persecution and torture, shocking testimonies of survivors!
In 1945, Azis’s family – consisting of his two wives, his 11-year-old son Hysni, three daughters, and Isuf’s wife with her three-year-old infant son Ilir – were interned in the labor camps of Berat and Kuçovë.
They remained there for four years. In these Stalinist camps, where thousands of persecuted families from across the country were concentrated, women – both young and old – were forced to perform heavy labor, such as transporting stones, digging earth, etc. In 1949, they were removed from there and sent to the infamous Tepelena camp.
Regarding the suffering and the macabre life in this cruel camp, I have contacted living witnesses and survivors: Ilir Isuf Biçaku, Faik Halil Alla, Sheme Muzhaqi, Shefqet Dobra, Fatime Bajraktari (Biçaku), Faik Kasa, and Xhevdet Shuaipi – the latter from the village of Milec, Ersekë.
In the Tepelena prison-camp, they were placed in Italian barracks from the war era, men and women together. “In one barracks (kapanon),” they recount, “there could be over 500–600 people.” Their bedding consisted of pieces of old wooden boards. Each family was assigned a space calculated at 50 cm per person.
“We stood like cartridges in a magazine,” says Ilir Biçaku, who was only 6 years old when they arrived. All surviving witnesses explain the horrors of the camp, some of which I am describing below: Ilir Biçaku recounts that the bathrooms were about 200 meters away.
The daily ration was only 400 grams of bread per person. The bread smelled foul. It was made from cornmeal ground from warehouse waste. For a long time, they fed only on dry bread. Later, they began to cook a fatless soup. They ate from a cauldron – they called it “cauldron food.” In a line, everyone passed before the cauldron with an aluminum bowl, receiving a ladle of broth that could by no means be called a meal.
“In it,” he recounts, “floated a stray grain of rice or a bean. In many cases, worms were visible in it. This was the soup that kept their souls alive. Many people fainted from lack of food. Diseases were rampant. For all those years, they never saw the color or warmth of a fire; they never knew a proper wash.
They didn’t know what a change of clothes was. From 1945 to 1954, they never held any money. Mothers tightened their belts to give a bit more to their children from their 400-gram ration. Lice and bedbugs swarmed like clouds over their clothes. Every day, people died of hunger. A woman was killed by a landmine explosion. She had gathered some dry thorns to light a fire to heat a small pot with two rags to wash them.
The territory contained remains of war ammunition. For five years, from 1949 to 1954, thousands of people from families opposed to the regime stayed in this prison-camp, surrounded by barbed wire and watched day and night by guards. Most were women, children, and the elderly, as the men were fugitives, imprisoned, or executed by the regime.
Ilir Isuf Biçaku from the village of Letëm spent his childhood here, from age 6 to 11. He started primary school in Tepelena. Initially, a policeman took them to an improvised learning spot about 600 meters from the barracks. There were no textbooks or necessary tools. In later years, the children went to school themselves.
It was truly heart-wrenching for these hundreds of children, who did not know why they were there and whose bellies were never full, even with dry bread. Here is how Ilir, a survivor of the infamous Tepelena camp, describes it in his book of poetry titled “Amidst Pressure,” published in 2001:
To Tepelena
“Still a child, I know not why / Run and play were hindered there, without mother, father, sister, brother / amidst the wires, the captives were divided. I walked, I ran, I know not why / Run and play were hindered there At the wire mesh, black disaster / We stayed hungrier than can be. I fell, I rose, I know not why / Run and play were hindered there, At the barbed wire, the bayonets / Without sun, without air, life passed by. I endured the pain, I know not why / Run and play were hindered there The wire wouldn’t snap, the thorn wouldn’t break / The water couldn’t be drunk, the sky couldn’t be seen.”
Ilir’s mother was forced to go to work carrying wood in the forest. The other family members also experienced the cruel life of the camp: his grandmothers, sisters, and his uncle, Hysniu. The latter, which was 15–16 years old, was also taken to work.
After six years, in 1954, they were moved from Tepelena and interned in Savër, Lushnjë. Here they were interned, meaning not imprisoned. Initially, they were placed in a large barracks that had been a horse stable. “There,” Ilir said, “the heat and cold entered ‘as they pleased’.”
The Biçaku family happened to be at the entrance by the door; they were forced to endure being stepped on by people going out at night. Later, four families were put together in one barrack room. Later, seven other barracks were built, in which several families were similarly placed together, moving them out of the former horse stable.
Internment had another evil: every day you had to show up for the roll call (apel), where absences were recorded as they feared escapes. In Savër, Hysni met Esma Xhydollari from the village of Ydënisht, Pogradec. She was also interned with her family. In 1944, the partisans had burned the Xhydollari family’s houses. Her father, Selami, became a fugitive to organize against the communist regime.
In a clash with the Pursuit Forces, he was wounded in Macukull, Mat, and captured. He went to trial and was initially sentenced to death, later commuted to 101 years in prison, of which he served 12. Hysni Biçaku married Selami’s noble daughter in 1965. He had three children with her: two daughters and a son, Ardian. Azis Biçaku’s daughters also married.
The eldest married earlier into the Qoshi tribe in Zgosht; she spent little time in internment. Menduhia, the second sister, was engaged to Xhevit Dosku, Shahin’s son. After several requests from Azis and Menduj Dosku, she was released. In 1951, she was in Letëm, staying at the house of Ahmet Hoxha’s wife (Ahmet was executed by partisans after Azis’s houses were burned).
Azis Dosku (Xhevit’s uncle), Menduj (his son), and Meremja (Shahin’s wife and Xhevit’s stepmother) went there. They took their bride, Menduhia, without a wedding and brought her home. Thus Xhevit Dosku was married, and Menduhia escaped internment.
Fatime, the youngest daughter of Azis Biçaku, who went through all the camps, married while in Savër to Skënder Bajraktari from Hoti, Shkodër. She is the only one of Azis Biçaku’s children alive today. While in Savër, Ilir finished high school in Lushnjë (1958–1962), with teachers such as Ismail Turdiu, Liri Kazazi, Hajro Babameto, etc.
Many prominent intellectuals were also interned in Savër, such as Lazër Radi, Hamit Kazazi, Dragushe Efovia, Tomorr Dosti, the Mirakaj family, the Kolgjini family, etc., who suffered internment after being released from prisons. “Under the guidance of these intellectuals,” he said, “we entered the path of knowledge, particularly literature, reading over 2,000 novels during the internment years.”
His dream was to become a painter. One day he competed for this branch and won, but his dream was extinguished as he was not allowed to continue his studies. The dictatorship cast away this rare talent, making him works as a farm laborer and mason, but he never left his books. In 1967, he married Fatbardha Çepele from Roskovec, also interned, coming from a persecuted family whose father and uncle had been sentenced to 10–15 years in prison.
In 1988, they were given a brick room in a house in Savër. My God! He couldn’t believe it. Meanwhile, Ilir never lost hope that one day he would return to the brush. With the overthrow of the dictatorship, his dream came true. In 1990, the persecuted and undervalued Ilir Biçaku was elected village head in Savër.
He left Savra in 1992. In 1993, he worked as an officer at the Lushnjë Police Station. In 1990, he finally began painting. He participated in two Albanian painting auctions at the National Gallery of Arts (2001–2005).
In the competition opened for painting on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Independence, Ilir was among the 16 winning contestants, earning the right to present 3 paintings – portraits from his life. Another event in Ilir’s life is worth mentioning: after the collapse of the dictatorship, Ilir lived with his children, wife, and his long-suffering mother.
His father, Isuf, who had been separated from him in 1945 when Ilir was only 3 years old, finally came from Belgium. It was a tearful and joyful reunion. They went together to Letëm, his beloved birthplace, staying for several days with relatives and many friends.
I met Azis Biçaku’s last child, Fatime Bajraktari – the only one from the first generation of this family tree still alive – on September 1, 2019, in the city of Lezhë, where she resides. Fatime is now 82 years old. She often goes to Belgium to spend time with her two sons and a daughter, while she lives with her other daughter in Lezhë. It was an impressive meeting.
From the memories gathered from contemporaries about Azis Biçaku, it seemed she resembled him greatly. Attentive, calm, and confident in her answers, Fatime radiated maturity and culture. It seems the long years of suffering under the dictatorship had not defeated her.
Fatime Azis Biçaku was born in the village of Letëm in 1937. She recounts that she barely remembered her father, as she was only 7 years old when the family was interned. They stayed in Berat until 1949, then in Turan and Tepelena. In Tepelena, she spent her early teenage years, from age 12 to 17.
Like hundreds of other girls in the camp, Fatime experienced hunger, contempt, and the agonizing life in the barracks of the macabre camp. In 1951, they were temporarily released and came to Letëm. They stayed for 5–6 months in Ahmet Hoxha’s house.
They thought they were saved, but no! They were taken again by force and sent to Tepelena, inside the barbed wire, surrounded by armed guards. After Tepelena came Savra. Initially, several families were placed together in a barracks. “Marriage was restricted,” Fatime recounts. “Around 1958–’59, a decree came that the interned could marry each other within the camp.”
Fatime was now 22. In 1959, she married Skënder Bajraktari. His father, Kadri Bajraktari, had served several years in prison and had been brought from Tepelena to Savër with his family. With him was the family of his brother, Mul Bajraktari.
Fate willed that the brave and noble daughter of Azis Biçaku would marry the son of the Bajraktari family, known for its patriotic and freedom-loving traditions in Malësia e Madhe. They were kept interned in Savër until 1965. Afterward, they were allowed to leave. Their family settled in Shtoi, Shkodër. After a year, they headed to Hoti to settle in their home.
They stayed there for two years, but they were not destined to stay longer in that house they desired so much. The legendary three-story ancient tower house (Kulla), where dozens of Highland assemblies had met, had been burned twice by Serbo-Montenegrin forces, and the family had rebuilt it better and stronger.
The communists did not burn it, but they set their sights on using it. In 1967, the agricultural cooperative took it, using it as a school and a warehouse. The family was forcibly evicted. They left, desperate and looking back, not to return for all the years of the dictatorship. Their family settled in Bushat until the fall of the regime.
Skënder and Fatime Bajraktari raised 4 children. Through countless sacrifices, persecuted and kept under constant surveillance by the hyenas of the dictatorship, they remained dignified and proud. Skënder passed away in 2002.
While writing about the Biçaku family (it was May 2018), I saw the notice online that Ilir Biçaku had passed away from a serious illness. I felt very hurt, not only for his death but because I wanted Ilir to see my book.
Since I have contacted seven survivors of the infamous Tepelena camp, six of whom are from Librazhd, I wish to also describe the accounts of Xhevdet Shuaipi from Erseka. I met Xhevdet in Elbasan on March 2, 2017. Knowing he had been interned, I asked if he had been in the Tepelena camp and if he knew Ilir Biçaku.
“Yes,” he told me, “I was with him in Tepelena and Lushnjë. Ilir had a great passion for painting, but he was allowed neither to be educated nor to practice this profession!” In Xhevdet’s accounts, there are spine-chilling moments. First, he told me the circumstances of his family’s internment. His father, Pajazit Shuaipi, fled to Greece in 1948 because of unbearable taxes on land and livestock. / Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue…
